


Beam

by thejammys



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, First Kiss, Fluff, M/M, Sibling Incest, Thor has a crush on Loki, and is anyone here going to be surprised if I type 'and Loki has a crush on Thor'
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:14:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25561903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thejammys/pseuds/thejammys
Summary: This fic is an expansion of a drabble that I wrote —"Loki is sensitive about the gap between his front teeth.Hiding smiles and laughs beneath his hand draws too much attention, so he skips expressing joy altogether.Thor misses seeing his brother happy, and throws himself into the effort of making it so. Loki pushes him away and tries to cause trouble to frustrate Thor and dissuade him from the task.But Thor’s love is built for endurance, and he persists.Loki’s love is his brother.When he can resist Thor’s charms no more, Loki hides his happy grateful grin from Thor’s eyes by pressing it against his brother’s lips."
Relationships: Loki/Thor (Marvel)
Comments: 15
Kudos: 112





	Beam

oooooo

“Loki, close your lips.”

The six-year-old’s smile falls and he turns to his mother, confused.

It’s family picture day, and Odin has unknowingly set up the perfect shot: Loki, hurt and deflated, and his father absent from the frame.

Frigga shushes her husband and waves a furious hand at him. “Loki, you smile however you like. You’re adorable,” she says, tucking her child’s dark curls behind his ear.

“I won’t have my colleagues thinking we can’t afford braces,” Odin protests, standing up from where he is crouched behind a tripod with a camera aimed at his family.

“What’s a braces?” Thor asks as he shifts his balance between his feet and fidgets. His parents said this photo would only take a minute and Thor is certain it has already been sixteen hours. He is wiggling to go play with Loki, as this interrupted their space ship game.

“Odin, your  _ son _ is behaving extremely well and smiling for this picture. It would be a shame for you to say something to make your wife frown for it,” Frigga clips back sternly, keeping a hand on Loki’s back and using her other to keep Thor from darting off.

“He can smile with his mouth closed,” Odin grumbles.

“Why does daddy want me to close my mouth?” Loki murmurs to his mother, turning to her to hide his mouth so he does not get in trouble with his father.

“Odin.”

Loki doesn’t get an answer, and though he looks ruffled and rather like a disgruntled walrus, Odin goes back to setting up the shot and then walks over to his family.

As they set up once more, manufacturing smiles and holding in their thoughts, Odin shoots Loki a warning look.

No one else sees it, but Loki knows what his father is telling him.

Though it takes Loki a few years to figure out exactly what braces are and why his father wants his teeth hidden, that was the day he stopped smiling.

oooooo

Over the years, Thor takes it upon himself to try and summon Loki’s smiles. His success rate skyrocketed when they moved out of their parent’s house and went to college, but the habit Loki grew into of covering his mouth with his hand, or having one hover nearby ready to do so, has persisted.

Occasionally, Thor will draw too much mirth from his brother and Loki will retaliate by shutting Thor out or being obstinately difficult for a week. He’s mildly less of a brat now that they no longer live under the same roof, but since Thor hopes to return to that arrangement one day he does his best to persist on the line of getting Loki to laugh and not being stabbed for it.

He saves memes, memorizes jokes, makes puns, turns himself into a clown — does anything and everything he can think of that Loki might find amusing, or at least endearing.

Tonight they’re having dinner at Loki’s apartment, and Thor has bombed with a series of knock-knock jokes and suspects he is on the brink of Loki setting him on fire.

“You want to know the last words my grandfather said to me before he kicked the can?” Thor asks solemnly as he turns to stare out the window with a crease in his brow.

Loki closes his eyes and ages by three years. “Thor, we have the same grandfather and he’s not dead.”

Thor continues to stare out the window, waiting for Loki to give in, and it takes him flapping a hand in his brother’s general direction to get him to concede.

He hears a sigh and then Loki asks, “What did he say?”

Thor mimics the sigh and shakes his head, then swings his face over to aim his grim expression at Loki. In his most deadpan and humorless voice, Thor says, “He said, ‘I wonder how far I can kick this can,’”

_ Lips are twitching, he’s frowning, he’s furious – _

Loki looks like he is going to combust with how severely his lips are quivering in his attempts to hold back a smile.

Never one to give up, especially not on something as important as making his brother happy, Thor leans forward with his elbows on his knees and clasps his hands together.

“I actually do have something serious to tell you,” he says.

But Loki is wise to this game and drops his chin pointedly. He brings a hand up to cover his mouth and raises an unamused eyebrow at his brother. “What?”

Thor takes a steadying performative sigh and shrugs as though saying that nothing can be done. “I went to the doctor the other day, and he told me I have to stop masturbating.”

He hears air rush out of his brother’s nose in a gust, and Thor is so close to cracking Loki he can taste it.

“Why did he tell you that, Thor?” Loki asks tersely, as though he is clenching his jaw to control himself.

Thor sits up straight and keeps one hand on his knee while he makes the other into a fist that he brings up to his lips. He closes his eyes and lets out a shuddering gasp. “He said, ‘because I’m trying to examine you’.”

Loki breaks.

His brother practically snaps backward from the force of the giggles bursting out of him. Thor gazes at his sibling with a wide grin on his own face, unable to mask his joy at hearing Loki’s delight even though he forfeits the act.

It doesn't matter, the joke is over and getting Loki to laugh is the whole point.

By the time Thor hugs his brother goodnight, Loki has stopped covering his mouth and his shoulders are looser.

“Hey, let’s take a selfie before I go. We are both having  _ excellent _ hair days,” Thor suggests as he pulls out his phone and flips his locks back while he gives Loki an exaggerated model pout to substantiate his claim that his current level of sexiness must be digitally preserved.

Loki hesitates, pursing his lips and tugging them to one side.

“Come on, Skittles,” Thor urges, not wanting any delay to break the sorcery that drew out Loki’s smiles tonight.

Perhaps it’s the childhood nickname that wins Loki over, but he shoves Thor’s shoulder and says in his most put-upon tone, “ _ Fine _ .”

Thor wraps a firm arm around Loki’s shoulders and hauls his brother close to him, smushing their cheeks together and grinning as widely as he can to the point where his gums threaten to geeb Loki’s lips.

“Say, ‘my brother’s hair is sexy!’” Thor chirps sincerely.

Loki’s annoyed grin is reflected back at Thor from his front facing camera, and he manages to slap the shutter button at the perfect time; immortalizing this lovely moment between two brothers.

When he relaxes his arm and clicks on the image preview to look at the full-sized shot, Thor barely has time to come up with a compliment for his photography before Loki tenses up beside him.

“Delete that,” Loki says immediately.

It’s utterly perplexing to Thor, as this has to be hands down one of the best photos of either of them to exist. Loki’s cheekbones look sharp, his eyes are bright, and his curls are in fact having a great day.

But Loki’s lips are closed now, his smile tucked in, and he turns away from Thor and repeats his request. “Delete it, please.”

It’s polite enough, but it’s a demand, and Thor would rather lose a photo than a moment of his brother’s good will. He has the memory, the mental snapshot, and he hates the thought of crawling into bed tonight and feeling weird about whether or not Loki will return a ‘sweet dreams’ text.

“Ok, Loki,” he agrees, however reluctantly. He knows better than to push it, and that if he insists to his brother that he’s a handsome pretty lovely thing that Loki will think he’s being condescending.

Thor leaves without getting another hug, and Loki does not text him back that night.

oooooo

Loki continues to ignore Thor’s texts for a week, and on Thursday night after Thor has sent seven memes in a row he finally responds with:

_ I’m busy. _

But over two decades of knowing his brother better than he knows anyone or anything else in all the cosmos, Thor knows why Loki is pushing him away.

No one likes to suffer embarrassment, particularly over their appearance. It’s awfully jarring to go from being relaxed and elated to feeling like a spotlight has just blurted out one’s deepest insecurity.

Thor has done this dance with Loki for most of their lives. When Thor learned of the unstoppable force meeting the immovable object, he immediately pictured himself and his brother, and then shook his head furiously at the notion that he could not sway Loki to expressing pleasure.

Stopping isn’t an option. There has to be a soldier to fight for Loki’s smile, to battle for his laugh, and to take risks for even a second of his unmasked delight.

Marching onto the frontlines without armor or a weapon, Thor forges ahead fueled by nothing more than the overwhelm of his love and a refusal to surrender. He knows that Loki needs him to keep at it, to let him blossom into an unguarded version of himself even if it lasts for no more than a few hours a week.

It’s terrible to feel like hiding is necessary for survival, and that any honest exposure will be met with mockery.

With an old favorite film of theirs in his hand, and two bags of Skittles, Thor returns to his brother’s apartment on Friday night and knocks to the beat of the opening lick in  _ ‘The Immigrant Song’ _ .

Loki opens the door before he can get to the second ‘Ahhhh!’

“What are you doing here?” he asks, bringing his palm up to his mouth and frowning at his brother.

Thor frowns back and looks confused. “Didn’t you send me a telepathic message that you miss me terribly and haven’t had any candy in over fourteen years?”

It’s unlikely that any amount of Thor’s love will ever permanently banish Loki’s look of vexed exasperation that he only ever seems to offer to Thor, which at this moment is particularly potent. Even with only his eyes properly visible, the displeasure is palpable.

“I can’t hang out with you tonight, Thor,” Loki says testily.

Thor lets out a high-pitched, at least as much as a bass can impersonate a soprano, wail and looks stricken. “You’re telling me this now? After I’ve flown over two-hundred thousand miles to see you?”

Loki doesn’t move his hand and stares at him.

“The plane was made out of legos, so every time I got up to use the bathroom I repeatedly stepped on them! And you know my standard pre-flight meal is a jumbo bean burrito so I had to make that trip at least four times an hour!” Thor moans, throwing himself wholeheartedly into his tale, giving Loki his best puppy dog eyes.

Unfortunately, though he can see the corners of Loki’s eyes crinkling, Loki is unswayed.

“And there was this baby who wouldn’t stop crying, and so I offered to hold it because you know how people who don’t have kids but think they know better than the parents on how best to deal with them are always right? Well, the mom gave me the baby and it shit on me, Loki. It shit on me,” Thor continues, brokenhearted.

He can tell his brother’s lips are arguing with his instincts underneath his hand.

The only thing to do is advance.

“Loki, the baby shit on me.”

This does the trick, and Loki breaks their eye contact and turns away when he smiles, even though it’s hidden.

“Oh my god, Thor, just come in,” he says as he steps aside to let his brother pass.

Thor swoops in and kisses Loki’s cheek as he breezes into the apartment with a spring in his step.

From the complete absence of any food in the pantry, fridge, or inside of Loki’s stomach given the harassed growl it lets out, Thor surmises that his brother has not eaten dinner and offers to pay for them to have pizza.

Loki, who makes barely above minimum wage and survives on little more than spite and lollipops from the bank as he refuses to learn how to cook, accepts the offer and gets them glasses of water.

“What did you bring?” Loki asks, eyeing the brown paper bag in Thor’s hand.

“Aha, brother, I brought a critically acclaimed documentary about one of nature’s most elusive microorganisms,” Thor begins as he sticks his hand into the bag, trying not to crack and grin at Loki’s grimace, before pulling out the DVD case. “Vampires.”

Loki snorts, and it happens so fast that his hand can’t hide the flash of his smile. As though punishing himself for it, he overcorrects and frowns deeply.

“Can we watch it now or do you need to finish up your work?” Thor asks, nodding to Loki’s open laptop where he spies what looks like a delightful assortment of customer-service related drudgery.

Without looking at him, Loki goes to his desk and takes a seat. “I can stop when the pizza gets here,” he answers.

“Want me to rub your shoulders while you work?” Thor offers as he sets down the candy and movie on Loki’s coffee table.

He sees Loki turn his head like he might look back at Thor, but he faces his computer instead. “You don’t need to do that, Thor,” he says firmly.

Thor lets out a hearty ‘ _ pshaw! _ ’ and walks up behind his brother.

“Consider it a favor to me. I have to stretch my fingers after how still and stiff they got on the plane,” he says as he hovers his hands above his brother’s shoulders and waits for the green light.

Loki doesn’t reply immediately, and Thor knows it’s so he won’t seem interested or eager.

It’s fine, Thor can deal with Loki’s reluctance to be honest.

“If it will help you then I suppose that would be fine,” Loki says after he sends off an email to a customer.

Warm palms press against bony shoulders and immediately grip the neglected muscles beneath.

“Woof, Loki you’re tense,” Thor says after only a few seconds of massaging.

That borders dangerously close to perception, and Loki goes on the defensive.

“You would be tense too if you worked sixty hours a week at a job you hate,” Loki snaps, jerking his shoulders out from Thor’s caress.

With the gentleness one would use to lure a hissing alley cat out from its hiding place, Thor sighs empathetically and places a single hand on Loki’s head, to scratch his scalp.

“I don’t know how you do it, Skittles. That’s a lot for anyone to deal with, but especially someone with curls this great,” Thor assuages as his nails glide up and down through the dark nest he is so genuinely fond of.

In the reflection of Loki’s computer screen, Thor sees his brother soften and let slip the briefest of smiles.

The rest of their wait is spent in silence, with Thor petting and tenderizing every bit of Loki he can get his hands on, and when the delivery person interrupts their spell Thor nearly howls again.

They relocate to the couch with plates and napkins, and Thor puts the movie on. He is glad to see Loki kick off his shoes and curl his legs up underneath him.

Allowing himself to be comfortable is a good sign.

They’ve seen this film more times than Thor can count, and though their mouths are full of cheese and comfort carbs the brothers insist on quoting most of the lines.

When Loki belly laughs at one of his favorite parts and then quickly closes his mouth and straightens his back, Thor’s heart sinks straight into his ass.

He will not surrender, and there is one avenue he has yet to take; one he has held back for fear of crossing a line he cannot recover from. But the idea that Loki is so ashamed of any part of himself that this most basic of needs and expressions: a smile and a laugh, should be met with disgust or penitence drives Thor to take the leap.

“I’ve always thought he was sexy,” Thor says, nodding to the screen at Steven Weber.

Loki sucks his lips into his mouth and nods.

Thor waits what he feels to be the appropriate amount of seconds to appear nonchalant, and stretches his arms up over his head, then drapes his right one on the back of the couch, perching optimistically close to Loki’s shoulders, and continues.

“His hair looks like yours, just brown.”

In his peripheral vision Thor sees Loki scrunch his face and turn to aim his incredulousness at his twin.

“No, it doesn’t,” Loki protests.

Thor squints at the television to double check his eyesight and then shakes his head. “That is  _ exactly _ what your hair looks like when it thunderstorms.”

From the way Loki’s eyebrows fold and lift, Thor worries his comment has had the opposite effect of its intention.

“It’s extremely cute,” he adds quickly.

Though it’s clear Loki missed the point, he rolls his eyes and Thor hopes that means he is at least not offended.

“Yeah right,” Loki snorts.

“What are you talking about? You’re extremely cute,” Thor insists, turning his face to Loki and frowning.

“Cute isn’t sexy, Thor.”

False, on multiple accounts.

Thor closes the inch of space between his hand and Loki’s shoulder and tugs his sibling practically on top of him.

“You’re both,” he says resolutely.

The jostling has disrupted Loki’s curls, and he pushes Thor’s arm off of him so he can properly sit up and comb them with his fingers.

“Yes hardy har har, Thor,” Loki replies.

This will not do.

Thor’s right hand is still in the perfect position to embrace his brother, and he brings it up to cup Loki’s neck, trailing his thumb slowly along his brother’s jawline and then pressing it to a soft earlobe.

He waits until Loki looks him in the eye and makes sure his brother knows this is not part of a jest.

“You are infuriatingly, overwhelmingly sexy.”

Loki’s eyes widen, and Thor can feel his brother’s pulse pick up underneath his palm. He won’t give Loki time to doubt it or try and excavate the joke, and squeezes gently.

“Now sit on my lap and let’s watch this documentary,” Thor murmurs, tugging lightly to encourage Loki forward. 

His brother looks speechless, but pleasantly flustered, and he wavers over whether or not to make Thor’s thighs his new seat for all of three seconds before melting under Thor’s guiding hand and relaxing into the embrace of his twin.

A bonus of this uncharted proximity is that Thor knows Loki can feel just how hard his own heart is beating, and that the furious beat of it outs Thor’s desire in ways where his words leave too much up to Loki’s doubt.

Thor rubs up and down his Loki’s forearms and then laces his fingers together with his brother’s, hoping to forestall what he suspects is coming.

Sure enough, when Dracula cannot escape the sunlight and careens toward the ground pathetically yowling,  _ “Renfield, you asshole!” _ Loki laughs and has no free hand to hide it.

In anticipation of the moment, Thor is already gazing at his brother with an adoring grin on his face, and when Loki realizes he’s caught and that any efforts to bury his smile are unnecessary, he beams at Thor.

“There you are,” Thor nearly whispers, fondly.

The tenderness is too much for Loki, and with no other option to get Thor’s eyes off of his mouth, Loki leans in and presses his grin to his brother’s.

oooooo

Their goodnight hug is suspiciously long tonight, suggesting that they might just enjoy holding each other.

Thor delivers an onslaught of kisses, as the first one broke some kind of dam in him and unleashed the flood of needing to smash his mouth with Loki’s.

When Loki has finally withdrawn his lips and started to shut the door and hide his happy pink cheeks behind it, he calls out to Thor.

“Hey, do you still have that picture of us?” he asks.

Thor looks down at his phone and nods. “It’s still in the deleted folder.”

Loki hesitates, pressing his forehead against the doorframe and then slowly turning his face to his brother.

“You can recover it if you want,” he says quietly.

Thor’s eyebrows shoot up and the explosiveness of his smile is seldom seen outside of children on Christmas morning, which is what this feels like for Thor.

“Really?” he asks, stepping forward and holding his hands out for Loki’s.

“Sure,” Loki says with an uncaring shrug that is wildly unconvincing.

Thor leans in to nuzzle his nose. “Is it because of how good my hair looks?” he asks against Loki’s lips.

Loki bites him and beams.

oooooo

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Thank you for reading! The film they watch is 'Dracula: Dead and Loving It'


End file.
